(Original post available here)

One of the challenges I faced in configuring my new backup system on my Ubuntu Linux-based server was setting up my two external drives to mount at the same place in the filesystem.

Why? Because the program I use to manage my backups, BackupPC, expects the storage “pool” to always be in the same place. My options were to write a script to change the BackupPC configuration each time a different drive was plugged in, or make the pool mount in the same location regardless of which drive I’m using. Because I was working with LUKS-encrypted volumes I faced additional complexities which made it  difficult to use other methods (like volume labeling) because of how Gnome handles and mounts such encrypted volumes.

While it took a while to make it work, once I figured it out it did exactly what I needed. Now, I’m sharing my results with you to save you the trouble of doing all the research yourself!

I found the easiest solution both for this problem and my next one (making eSATA drives auto mount) was to use HAL configuration files. HAL stands for “Hardware Abstraction Layer” and is one of the ways Linux interfaces with various hardware elements, including hard drives. Using XML it is easy to create custom policies to define how HAL handles particular devices.

(*Note: I have read that Ubuntu will soon be moving away from using HAL, possibly as soon as 9.10, Karmic Koala. I’ve tested this on Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10, and 9.04, but it should work with any distro that (still) uses HAL.)

(** Note 2: Having recently begun the process of rebuilding my server on Ubuntu 9.10/Karmic, I can verify that this method DOES NOT WORK. I am currently in the process of figuring out a solution, likely using udev and scripting, and will post my results as a post here …)

These configuration files are located in /etc/hal/fdi/policy. My installation included one existing file – preferences.fdi – which defines whether non-removable drives are auto-mounted. (We’ll get to eSATA auto mounting soon enough …)

Some quick notes on how .fdi files work: first devices are matched with pre-determined keys, defined through XML. Then, actions are taken by changing (or “merging”) other keys. A very basic .fdi file might consist of the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">

 <device>
   <match key="some.key" string="some_string">
     <merge key="another.key" type="bool">true</merge>
   </match>
 </device>

So what’s the easiest way to find these keys to match and merge? In my experience, Gnome Device Manager (aka gnome-device-manager).

To see if you have Device Manager installed, check under “Applications -> System Tools” or try to launch gnome-device-manager from the terminal. If it doesn’t work, install it using Synaptic or run:

sudo apt-get install gnome-device-manager

With your drive plugged in and turned on, open up the device manager and begin to look for your drive. You may have to expand some of the trees for “SCSI Host Adapters” and “SCSI Devices”, or possibly USB-related trees,  before you see the drive entries, usually titled “Mass Storage Drive” or something about removable storage.  There may be several of these entries. You will need to look at attributes like the model numbers and capacities to determine which drive it is you’re wanting.

Once you’ve identified the drive you want the information for, type ctrl+p or click on “View -> Device Properties” which should make an additional “Properties” tab appear beside the previous “Summary” tab. Now you will be able to see the various keys, types, and values you can use when creating .fdi files. For our purposes here we will need to look at the properties not for the drive itself, but for the volume we want to create a mount point for.

Note: this is with drive attached via eSATA

Our first order of business is to find a key that will provide a definitive match for each drive / volume. In my situation I was using two identical external enclosures with two identical drives. I could have simply created one rule that would specify the mount point based on any drive that matched some shared property, such as the model number (storage.model) but I wanted to make sure that these two volumes and only these volumes would share this mount point. In addition, I wanted to be able to tell at a glance which one was mounted, so I needed HAL to distinguish between them somehow.

Every volume has a distinctive UUID – kind of like a fingerprint that identifies it to the rest of the system. In the device manager, under the properties tab for the volume you’re working on, look for the volume.UUID key. Once you’ve found it you can begin to write your HAL policy file.

Create a new, blank text file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy. (You will probably need to do all this as root / sudo) Name it something like 30-sharedmounts.fdi. (The “30″ in the file name makes sure this policy is evaluated prior to the general preferences file.) Once you have created your file, open it in your favorite text editor and start with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">

Now we need to specify the device and they keys we want to match and merge:

<device>
 <match key="block.is_volume" bool="true">
 <match key="volume.uuid" string="7feeefbf-416b-4383-9bb3-7fd51cb3e702">
   <merge key="volume.policy.desired_mount_point" type="string">ext_backup</merge>
   <merge key="volume.label" type="string">Ext Backup 1</merge>
 </match>
 </match>
</device>

Here’s a quick explanation of what you see above, and what each does:

• <match key=”block.is_volume” bool=”true”> – A little bit of insurance, to make sure we’re working with a volume and not a drive.
• <match key=”volume.uuid” string=”7feeefbf-416b-4383-9bb3-7fd51cb3e702″> – As described above, identifies the particular volume you want to specify the mount point for.
• <merge key=”volume.policy.desired_mount_point” type=”string”>ext_backup – This is the new mount point, which will appear beneath /media/ , so this example would mount as /media/ext_backup .
• <merge key=”volume.label” type=”string”>Ext Backup 1 – A little extra nicety. This is how we can identify between different volumes, even when they’re mounted at the same point in the filesystem.

Now that you’ve got the mount point specified for your first volume, you’ll want to do the same for your second (and any other subsequent) volumes. For each volume, just find the UUID and create a new <device> section in the .fdi file. Be sure to specify the same mount point and unique volume labels (if you so desire.) Once you’re done, save your file and restart HAL (or just reboot.)

sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart

Now, whenever you plug in your drives and Gnome auto-mounts your volumes, they will mount in the same place every time.

What’s that, you say? You’re using eSATA drives and they don’t auto-mount? My next blog post will take care of that for you, and it shouldn’t take more than about 5 minutes of your time. As an added bonus, this method will mount the volumes in the same place regardless of whether they’re connected by USB or eSATA.

After obtaining (and assembling) my new backup hardware my first order of business was to get the external hard drives formatted and set up with drive encryption. Since I’m swapping out one drive to store off-site I wanted to use drive encryption just in case it somehow ended up in someone else’s posession. In Ubuntu, the easiest way to encrypt a whole drive is using LUKS. I chose LUKS because it is easily readable by most Linux computers and can even be set up on a Windows PC, if absolutely necessary. This post will walk through the (remarkably simple) process of setting up encryption and formatting.

(Note: most of these instructions are condensed adaptations of articles I found here and here. )

FYI: I set up my drives using these instructions on Ubuntu 8.10 – Intrepid Ibex. I was later able to successfully mount and access the drives using Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron on my server and 9.04 – Jaunty Jackalope on my laptop.

When setting up my drives I was using USB 2.0, therefore these directions reflect that. The process may have been faster using eSATA, but at the time I did not yet have a controller card. The directions should be applicable to eSATA as well (unless otherwise noted), but your mileage may vary. These instructions can also be easily adapted for creating a handy, encrypted USB “thumb” drive.

Necessary Software

In order to proceed you must have the cryptsetup package installed:

sudo apt-get install cryptsetup

Finding the drive

After powering on the drive and hooking it up to the computer you need to identify the device:

dmesg | tail -20

[33884.688746] usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd ...
[33884.764079] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[33884.764868] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[33884.765316] usb-storage: device found at 9
[33884.765321] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scan...
[33888.042416] usb-storage: device scan complete
[33888.043707] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     HDS72505 0KLA360 ...
[33888.047550] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors
[33888.048292] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[33888.048300] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
[33888.048305] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[33888.049648] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors
[33888.050421] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[33888.050428] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
[33888.050432] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[33888.050438]  sdb: unknown partition table
[33888.066470] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[33888.066545] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

In the example above (from this article)  you can see that the drive has been recognized as /dev/sdb. Your drives may show up differently (mine appeared as /dev/sdd and /dev/sde.) I’ll continue to use /dev/sdb to refer to the drive we are working with, but you should replace it with whatever your result is.

Create the partition

Before you can actually set up encryption or format the drive, you must create a partition. This is simply a portion of the drive you intend to store data on. A single physical drive may contain multiple partitions (as is usually the case with a linux boot drive) or just one. At this point you could easily choose to set up both an encrypted and a non-encrypted partition on your drive. I didn’t have a need for this, so I’ll be continuing with a single partition.

While it can be accomplished via the command line, I chose to use the graphical GParted program, available under the “System -> Administration -> Partition Editor” menu.

Choose your device via the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner. Then, select the unallocated space and create a new partition that encompasses the entire available space. We do not want to format the partition, only create it, so select “unformatted” as the filesystem.

Click “Apply” and your new partition will be created. You should now have a partition named something like /dev/sdb1 (notice there’s now a number added.) Once you have created the partition successfully, close GParted.

Setting up encryption

The next section is copied verbatim from the aforementioned article:

The dm-crypt, sha256 and aes kernel modules will need to be loaded prior to encrypting the partition:

sudo modprobe dm-crypt
sudo modprobe sha256
sudo modprobe aes

If the following error messages appear when loading sha256 and aes:

sudo modprobe sha256
WARNING: Error inserting padlock_sha ... No such device

sudo modprobe aes
WARNING: Error inserting padlock_aes ... No such device

it is an indication that the system does not have a hardware cryptographic device (source: Ubuntu Bug #206129)

The workaround is to add the following lines (using your favorite editor) to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/aliases and re-run the modprobe commands for the sha256 and aes kernel modules:

alias sha256 sha256_generic
alias aes aes_generic

Note that this is only necessary when we are setting up the drive. Later we will access them through Gnome and won’t need these modules.

Encrypting the partition

Finally, we can run the command to encrypt the /dev/sdb1 partition.

While there are other ways of securing your encrypted drive (such as key file stored locally or on a USB flash drive) I have chosen to use a strong passphrase. Mine is 23 characters long, but any password 12 characters or longer not consisting of dictionary-findable words should suffice.

The tutorial I used recommended the following command:

sudo cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sdb1 -c aes -s 256 -h sha256

The LUKS-formatting command above has the following options:

• –verify-passphrase – ensures the passphrase is entered twice to avoid an incorrect passphrase being used
• -c aes – specifies the use of AES encryption (c for cipher)
• -s 256 – specifies a 256-bit key size
• -h sha256 – use 256-bit SHA for password hashing

However, after reading this article I decided to go with 128-bit AES encryption instead, along with a strong passphrase, in hopes of reducing some computational overhead. Therefore, my command instead looked something like:

sudo cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sdb1 -c aes -s 128 -h sha256

Creating the filesystem

After setting up the encrypted partition, you must open and map it in order to set up the filesystem and begin using it.

Start with:

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 secureUSB

Which should prompt you for your passphrase and map the drive to /dev/mapper/secureUSB. Now you can format the encrypted partition with a filesystem using whatever method you prefer. I had good luck using GParted to format in ext3.

Like before, select the device you want to create the filesystem on – in this case /dev/mapper/secureUSB. You should again see a block of unallocated space, which you should select and create a new partition within. You may be presented with a big, scary message about setting a disklabel – tell it to create (since you have no data to lose on the drive at this point anyway!)

The create new partition screen will look just the same as before, only this time you will want to specify the filesystem type you want to use. Apply all the pending operations and wait for the formatting process – it can take quite a while, especially for large drives.

Mounting the encrypted drive

Having successfully set up encryption and created a filesystem, we’re almost ready to to mount the drive and begin using it! (Of course, this is still assuming you’re using USB. If you’re using eSATA then this won’t work as easily – that will come in a later post!)

Shut down the computer, disconnect the drive, and reboot. Once you’re back up and logged in, reconnect the drive and Gnome should prompt you for the passphrase and then mount automatically.

If you want the drive to unlock automatically on this computer, select “remember forever.”

After you’re unlocked and mounted, the final step is to take ownership of the drive’s root folder with a user other than your sudo/root user:

sudo chown youruser:youruser /media/disk

where youruser is the user you want to have ownership and /media/disk is where gnome auto-mounted the drive.

Finished!

Whew! I must say it has taken far longer to write this post than it did to actually perform these operations. The longest part of the entire process was creating the ext3 filesystem. If you’re using eSATA to set up the drive it will go much faster, however as I mentioned you will have a few more steps to take before you can easily hot-swap your drive. Stay tuned for the next post in this series for that how-to …

But even with making soup nearly every Monday and often eating the leftovers for lunch throughout the week, sometimes there are other not-so-simple (or not so vegetarian/vegan) soups we like to eat. White Chicken “Chili” is one of those favorites. While I haven’t deviated much from the recipe I started with, over the years I have tweaked this dish to where we really like it a lot.

This recipe originated in a church cookbook from the Central Church of the Brethren (Roanoke, VA), published in 1993. It is credited to then-pastor David Yingling. I find it somewhat ironic that this recipe will have now been tweaked and shared by two different Brethren pastors! Even though it’s called chili it’s really more of a cheesy soup. However, the flavors are decidedly chili-like, so I’ll stick with the original nomenclature. Here’s my rendition of “White Chicken Chili”:

White Chicken Chili

Ingredients

5 Tbsp butter
1 medium 0nion, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
2-4 jalapeño peppers (to taste), chopped small
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp chipotle pepper powder (or cayenne, more or less to taste)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried sage OR 4-5 fresh sage leaves, pulverized fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup half and half or milk (works fine with either)
2 cups chicken broth or stock
1 (17 oz.) can Northern beans
8 oz block Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
~1 cup corn (fresh, frozen, or canned – by order of preference)

Optional garnishes:
Chopped fresh tomato
Sliced scallions / green onions
Fried sage leaves
Hot sauce (we like Frank’s Red Hot)

Instructions

1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy-bottomed pot or saucepan (5 qt. minimum.) After butter has finished foaming, add onions, peppers, ginger, salt, and cumin. Sauté over medium heat until onions are translucent and a good fond is beginning to develop in the pan. Add the sage and stir to combine.
2. Move vegetables to the outer edges of the pot, clearing a space in the center. Add chicken, evenly distributed over the open area in the center. Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes before turning the chicken pieces over. After another 2-3 minutes, stir vegetables and chicken to combine. (The chicken should be nearly cooked through.) Add the garlic, stir, and cook until garlic is fragrant – about 30 seconds. Remove the chicken / vegetable mixture from the pan.
3. There should be some fond left in the pan at this point – that is a good thing, don’t clean it out! Melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter in the pan over medium-low heat until foaming subsides. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Allow this roux to cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly and taking care not to let it darken beyond a golden brown.
4. While whisking, add milk or half and half. Continue to whisk over heat until smooth and combined, 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Return heat to medium and begin to add chicken broth in several increments, whisking to combine and waiting for the mixture to bubble after each addition.
5. Once all ingredients are well-blended, add the chicken & vegetable mixture back to the pot. Add the beans (and any liquid from the can) and the shredded cheese and stir until cheese has melted.
6. Cover and continue simmering over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes to allow the flavors to meld, stirring occasionally. Add corn and cook 2-3 more minutes (longer if using frozen) until corn is just cooked.
7. Serve while warm, topping with garnishes if desired.

As you might imagine, this is quite rich with all that butter and cheese. This recipe will make about 6 small bowls or 4 large bowls. Even for me one bowl is usually sufficient! It goes great with fresh cornbread.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you decide to give this a try! I’d love to know how it turns out and what you think.

Before I get to what my new backup hardware consists of, it might be helpful to know a bit about my existing (old) setup. My home network consists of a workstation, a laptop, a netbook, a seldom-used garage PC, and a multipurpose server. Among it’s many duties, the server is a centralized backup server, allowing the various computers to back up files each night. It runs on an old AMD Athlon motherboard with 512MB RAM, using a 30 GB drive for the OS and programs and a pair of 200 GB drives for storage and backup.

Prior to this upgrade, the backup drive was regularly at 95% capacity. Even with the intelligent pooling technology used by the BackupPC software it had become necessary to limit the number of nightly backups I was keeping in order to make space for the unique data from the various PCs.  So I decided it was time to upgrade my storage situation.

I had been debating for a while how to best increase my storage space while also ensuring the integrity and protection of my data. Having recently witnessed my parents’ misfortune and recognizing that if a similar tragedy would have happened to me that many priceless digital memories and large amounts of work-related data would have been lost, I knew it was time for a system that incorporated some kind of off-site backup.

One option I contemplated was an online backup service, where your data is stored in the “cloud” and available whenever and wherever you need to access it. The particular provider I considered was SpiderOak. I had one of their free 2 GB accounts already and I was very impressed with their security and privacy policies as well as their interoperability with Linux. However, the problem with such online backup options is their monthly fees. For the price of 100 GB per year at SpiderOak I could buy a hard drive ten times that size!

So that’s what I did – I bought two 1TB hard drives. This will allow for one hard drive to be in service and the other stored at a secure, off-site location in case of disaster. I’ll have tons of storage space and no monthly fees. A win-win situation.

Of course, juggling two different drives means additional complications with set-up and management, but those are later blog posts.

My original plan was to buy two bare drives and two USB enclosures. My server does not support serial ATA (SATA) drives, so USB seemed easiest for both compatibility and swap-ability. I’ll elaborate later, but to make a long story short USB simply was not adequate for my particular needs, so I ended up purchasing a PCI SATA controller as well. Thankfully the enclosures supported both USB and eSATA, so everything else was simply a matter of configuration (also another post.)

So finally, here’s the hardware I ended up using to make my backup plans a reality. All links are to Newegg, my personal favorite purveyor of computer parts. (The prices listed were as of July 2009, and I’m sure will probably become laughable as time passes.)

• 2 Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS  1TB SATA drives – $79.99 ea.
• 2 Vantec NST-300SU external USB / eSATA enclosures – $27.98 ea.
• Rosewill RC-210 PCI internal & external SATA controller – $19.99

Total cost – $235.93 (All the items qualified for free shipping at the time I ordered them.) Less than the cost of 100GB for two years through an online backup provider.

Thus far I’ve had no hardware-related problems, and everything has been superbly compatible with Linux (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS / Hardy Heron.) The drives are extraordinarily quiet. Since the server still has 3 internal hard drives and several fans, the new external drives are basically inaudible.

The only nitpick I’ve got is with the Vantec enclosures. There is a bright blue power / activity LED on the front the enclosure, and when you install the drive into the internal tray you have to plug the LED in as you put the enclosure back together. Two small, recessed screws hold the drive tray in place. I found (with both my enclosures) that if I tightened the screws all the way down, completely closing the gap between the tray and the rest of the enclosure, the lights would not work. If I backed the screws out just a few threads everything worked fine. I don’t think the gap is large enough to pose a concern, so it’s basically just a small aesthetic annoyance. Not a deal-breaker, but something worth noting.

That’s it for the hardware specs! Next up, formatting the removable drives and setting them up with LUKS encryption.

Over the next couple days (weeks?) you can expect more on the following topics:

• New backup hardware: drives, enclosures, and controller card
• Setting things up: LUKS encryption on external drives
• Specifying a shared mount point in Ubuntu Linux
• Switching from USB to eSATA, making eSATA automount
• Making external encrypted drives work with BackupPC

As you can tell from this list I faced a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get this up and running. I’ll add links to the individual posts as I write them. Feel free to ask questions if you’ve got any!

Messenger Bag Contents

Inspired by a post on The Simple Dollar, I thought it would be fun to spill the contents of my trusty messenger bag for all the world to see.

As you may know, I commute by bicycle whenever the weather and my schedule permit, and sometimes even when they don’t! Since I work many places other than my office (home, coffee shops, local parks, etc.) I tend to keep most of what I need to work with me in my bag, since you never know what you might need when. I must admit, the eclectic mix of contents surprised even me. Read on to see what’s inside:

As you can see in the picture above (click for hi-res), I can cram quite a bit into my Dana Designs Ti messenger bag. I got the bag on ebay four or five years ago and even though I’ve thought of replacing it recently, as it’s starting to show some wear and tear, I simply can’t find anything else I like as much as this one!

Now for the grand list: (starting bottom center and moving counter-clockwise)

• Toshiba Laptop w/ extended-life battery
• Laptop power adapter
• Audio cables – mini-DIN to mini-DIN and mini-DIN to RCA (useful for connecting the laptop to other audio systems)
• Note pad – for those times when I’m feeling a little “analog”
• Blackberry Curve 8330 – don’t leave home without it!
• Plantronics bluetooth headset
• Bluetooth GPS receiver
• Reading materials – I’ve always got an assortment of books, magazines, etc. in my bag. Pictured are The Green Bible, Tim Keller’s The Reason for God, the latest Christian Century, and some premarital counseling materials
• Garage door opener
• Bike Richmond map – in case I meet anyone who needs a copy
• Assortment of writing devices: 2 pens, a pencil, and a couple mini sharpies
• Anointing oil
• Spare 1GB microSD card with miniSD and full-size adapters
• 6′ low-profile ethernet cable
• Stapler
• SwissBit – Swiss army knife / 512MB USB drive
• Chap stick
• Band-aids
• Inexpensive Koss earbuds – the cat ate my good ones …
• Rubber bands
• $1.01 in pocket change – I don’t always keep this exact amount but I always have some stashed just in case
• Spare Blackberry battery
• Business cards – they make good bookmarks too
• Microfiber cleaning cloth
• LED flash light
• Paper clips
• Mini USB cable – for the Blackberry, GPS, and anything else that might need it!

Just for the record, all of this is in my bag intentionally, not just because I put it in there one day and have never taken it out. And yes, I was an Eagle Scout (be prepared!) It’s amazing how often I find myself making use of some of these things, even the more unusual ones.

The bag, packed with all of the goodies pictured, weighs exactly 15 pounds. While it may seem like a lot all listed out like this, note that many of these things weigh just a few ounces each. Also note what’s not here: scads of papers, crumpled up receipts, and so on. I make it a point to file such things quickly (or eliminate them entirely) so I don’t have to worry about lugging them around.

Keeping the contents of my bag streamlined allows for plenty of extra room to add things like a light jacket or lunch and snacks when I’m heading out on the bike.

So there you have it: the mystery of my messenger bag, exposed.

I don’t want this to come across as an “I’m just putting something on my blog because ohmygod I haven’t posted in ages!” kind of effort (even if at some level it may be), so here are a couple quick updates. In particular I’ll try to highlight some of the things I’ve posted about “recently.”

• My parents are doing quite well after their house fire last year. I just received word from them today that their construction loan has finally gone through. They are rebuilding on the same piece of land their old house was on, but starting literally from the ground up. They hope to start digging footers for the new construction next week (mid-May) and to be in the house by fall.

• The new Honda Insight has launched, to pretty good reviews I might add, but I’m still not convinced. It is about 4/5 of a Prius at a lower price, both size and mileage-wise. While the $20k price is attractive, I still have significant reservations about the overall environmental impact of all those hybrids’ batteries, even if they do use less fuel.
• I survived my first time through all the major seasons of the church (especially Christmas and Easter) and have emerged unscathed as I prepare to celebrate my 1 year anniversary of being a pastor on June 15th. It’s incredibly hard to believe it’s been almost 11 months, though I guess if you judge by the continually decreasing frequency of my blog posts, it’s not all that surprising.
• Part of the blame for my lack of blogging should also go straight to Facebook and Twitter. The more I seem to get sucked into these social-media oriented sites, the less I create original content for my blog. I do intend to remedy that though …

Rather than inundate you with more semi-interesting updates, I’ll leave you with news about this blog:

No, I am not abandoning it. Yes, I am actively planning new content!

• A review of my recent “road test” of a 2009 Nissan Versa. I’ve had my eye on the Versa as a possible next car for a while now, so you might be interested in my impressions after spending 350 miles with one.
• Some tech updates on “recent” purchases – Lenovo S10 netbook, Nikon D60 Digital SLR camera, and several others.
• Some insight into bicycle commuting – continuing the irony that this gearhead car-blogger often doesn’t even drive a car unless I can’t avoid it!
• A revew of Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence – a wonderful, insightful (and relatively short) book about “how Christianity is changing and why.”
• A semi-regular feature for posting recipes, particularly for the soups and breads I make every Monday night as part of the dinner and conversation group I host.

So, there you go … proof that <montypythonvoice> I’m not dead yet! I’m getting better! </montypythonvoice> Stay tuned for new content coming soon, and feel free to leave your suggestions for interesting posts in the comments section!

Sunday, February 14, when I was 6 years old, we were sitting in worship when one of the ushers came forward and told my family we needed to step outside for a moment. He told my parents that our house was on fire. A neighbor had called the fire department and, knowing where we went to church, called the church. (Ah, the days before cell phones.) We returned home to find that the fire had mostly been extinguished, but one end of our house was a burned-out shell and much of the rest of the house suffered smoke damage.

Sunday, November 30, 20 years, 9 months, and 16I days later, as my parents were driving home to Virginia after visiting my wife Becky and me in Indiana for Thanksgiving, it happened again.

My parents had only been on the road for about an hour when the call came in, this time via cell phone. A neighbor had seen the fire and called 911, but did not know how to reach my family. Another neighbor saw the fire and called yet another neighbor still, who had my Dad’s number.

Receiving the news that your home is on fire is a devastating thing that no one should ever have to bear, even once, let alone twice, in their lives. Yet this actually makes three times for my family. Let me explain: this past March, as high winds whipped across southwest Virginia, a pine tree snapped and fell on a power line, igniting a forest fire. Hardly a month after the 20-year anniversary of our first house fire my parents got word while they were away on a Boy Scout activity that the woods surrounding their house were ablaze. Upon returning home they discovered the house was safe, but the fire had come within 6 feet of a large propane tank and their recently-built barn.

This, the third time they received a call regarding fire and their home, has turned out to be the worst by far.

Pictures

My brother, who lives nearby, got to the house shortly thereafter and took the first pictures we were able to see. Though you couldn’t see much for all the steam and smoke, you can tell that the house was lost.

(The full photo album, including hi-res versions of these pictures, is available here.)

Later conversations with firefighters revealed that the house was almost totally engulfed when they arrived. Surprisingly they were able to save the barn, which sits only 8-10 feet from the house.

My parents finally made it back to what used to be their home at about 10pm. It was then that it began to fully sink in the totality of the destruction.

The next morning, upon returning to the house with some friends, they found that the fire had re-ignited, as if to add insult to injury. The fire department was called once again to put out the flames that threatened what little was left standing from the day before.

Looking through the pictures that my parents have shared, every now and then I get a brief flashback from our first fire. I don’t remember much at all from then, but something about seeing the charred shell of the house, all of the ashes and rubble, occasionally jolts my memory.

It is difficult to look at the pictures and try to remember the way things used to look. Where once stood my childhood bedroom there is now nothing but ash and the springs from a mattress. No walls, no furniture, just destruction.

Appliances were piled on the back deck, the deck which I remember helping my family and friends build.

My father’s office, filled with computers, monitors, printers, and countless parts, is just a collection of disfigured metal shelving and computer cases. Anything plastic seems to have simply vanished.

Though they still await the final inspection, it is believed the fire may have begun around the propane furnace. We found out the neigbor who called 911 came to the house and knocked on doors and windows to see if my parents were at home, and turned off the propane at the tank, which may have helped to save the barn from burning as well.

My mother’s car, which was parked next to the house, was also damaged. A side window busted, the windshield cracked, and the side mirror melted. Both sets of keys to their third vehicle were all inside the house as well.

What’s next

Now begins the long process of greiving, recovering, and rebuilding. Mom and Dad have been surrounded with love and support from the many communities they are a part of, especially their church. Many of their friends from church walked with them through this 20 years ago.

They are staying nearby with friends for the time being, and intend to find a house to rent before Christmas. Since they had been visiting us they had more with them than they might have been able to save otherwise, including their laptop computers, quite a few clothes, and their dog.

The insurance company has been very helpful thus far and based on past experience will likely continue to be. After a final inspection of the house my parents will begin to literally sift through the ashes in search for anything that might be salvageable. It won’t be an entirely unfamiliar undertaking for them, though this time there will be much less that is saved.

I am thankful that so many people have showered them with support, love, and prayers in the midst of this tragedy, especially with being so far away myself. I anticipate going home at Christmas; I don’t know that there’s much that me being there now would accomplish. Becky and I have spent a lot of time on the phone with them the past couple days and I’m sure we’ll continue to talk with them a lot, giving them both support and listening ears to process things.

Many people have expressed a desire to help out somehow. We’re still working on figuring out what help is needed and how all of us can best lend our support. One of the things my parents have suggested is that anyone who might have old pictures of our family, either from family events, Boy Scouts, school, marching band, etc. can scan those pictures for them as a way to begin to piece together some of the irreplacable things that were lost. As I find out more ways to help, I’ll be sure and post them here on my blog, on facebook, and maybe even on twitter.

The “God Question”

Being a person who spends quite a bit of time thinking about faith, God, and life, it seems unsurprising that I’ve thought a lot about where God is in the midst of such tragedy.

It is tempting to see events such as this as divine retribution for things we’ve done wrong, or a sign of some sort. Some might even see it as a positive gift from God, a chance to cleanse and purge all of the excess stuff from life and start anew. Both of these assume that God was behind this tragedy, that God caused it for some divine purpose.

But that’s not how I see it. I don’t think God causes tragedy. I don’t think God causes babies to die, car accidents to take the lives of teenagers, hurricanes and tsunamis to destroy entire cities, or propane furnaces to malfunction and burn down houses. I simply don’t believe that is how God works. The world we live in is an imperfect place where unexplainable tragedies are an unfortunate part of life.

The way I see it, when such awful things happen, God may not be the force that causes them, but God is actively walking beside us, supporting us, and helping us to rise from the ashes. It is with the help of God that people are able to forgive someone who killed one of their family members. It is by God’s work in our lives that we are able to find a kernel of hope in the midst of great loss. God is with us in the darkest hour and points us toward the light of a new day. God accompanies us as we sort through the rubble, cries with us in our pain, and gives us strength to face tomorrow.

No one deserves tragedy. Not my family, not yours, no one. It is my hope and prayer that in the midst of this tragedy, as in all tragedies, that those of us who are hurting, mourning, and feeling helpless will feel the presence of the Divine Comfortor with us, walking with us into tomorrow, whatever tomorrow may bring.

As a missional-minded Christian I find myself thinking about how to reach out to and help those who experience poverty on a daily basis. Over and over again the bible speaks out against systemic poverty. There’s recognition that poverty is a part of the ongoing brokenness of humanity, but there’s also the promise that in God’s Kingdom injustices such as poverty will be overcome. Still, poverty remains a pervasive problem in the world today.

Most of us in the middle class don’t often come face to face with poverty. From time to time we may feel “broke” because we have over-extended our finances and over-stretched our credit. But in my opinion that’s different than being truly poor.

There are a number of personal finance books out these days with titles like You’re Broke Because You Want To Be that remind people of this in very frank ways. And while I think there’s some room for sensitivity in helping people to recognize how their consumerism-driven habits are wreaking havoc on their long-term financial sustainability, these forthright books do have the upside that they bring to light some of the differences between being broke and experiencing “real” poverty. Trent over at The Simple Dollar blog writes on this quite well.

I think that over time we can become disillusioned into thinking that we know what poverty is like, especially during times of “economic turmoil” like we are currently experiencing. But unless we’re put in situations where our lives cross paths with those who are impoverished we can only speculate and pretend we know what it’s like.

This is especially troublesome for Christians. As we try and find ways of participating in God’s work towards the continuing realization of the Kingdom, we are called to reach out to those who are hungry, thirsty, and without shelter. This inevitably includes the poor. Yet how can we reach out to those we don’t even know or ever encounter? How can we provide any sort of real help to those who are poor if we don’t also seek to establish relationships with them?

I’ll be honest in saying that I personally don’t have a lot of experience with those who are truly poor. I’ve helped with service projects, food pantries, and disaster response trips that sought to help those who were deeply in need, but even then there was little opportunity for real relationship. Now, in my work as a pastor, I occasionally come face-to-face with poverty in very real ways, but it’s not very often and it’s rarely because I have taken the initiative to reach out to those who are poor.

If Christians are to engage in working towards God’s Kingdom then at some point we will have to start taking real steps towards alleviating poverty. Groups like Sojourners and the ONE Campaign have been campaigning for a while now to fight poverty and are working to raise poverty-related issues during this year’s election. Next week I’ll be preaching with an eye towards the election and poverty will surely be one of the Kingdom-related issues I’ll encourage people to think about as November 4th draws near.

So what experiences do you have with poverty? In what ways have you been active in helping to alleviate the plight of the poor? How can we as Christians find real and tangible ways of reaching out to those who suffer in poverty in our communities and around the world? Feel free to share any of your thoughts in the comments …